


Stanning John Sheppard

by Fairyglass



Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Crush at First Sight, M/M, Romance, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-12 15:18:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18013364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairyglass/pseuds/Fairyglass
Summary: Rodney McKay is not very good at busy work.  There are too many actually important things that actually need to be done for him to invent trivial bullshit on top of that.The problem there, of course, is that being diligent about both his academic and bureaucratic responsibilities means he doesn’t get to see much of Major Sheppard outside of team interactions.  And… humiliating as it is for him to admit, let alone acknowledge, Rodneyreallywants to see more of Major Sheppard.





	Stanning John Sheppard

Rodney McKay is not very good at busy work. There are too many actually important things that actually need to be done for him to invent trivial bullshit on top of that.

The problem there, of course, is that being diligent about both his academic and bureaucratic responsibilities means he doesn’t get to see much of Major Sheppard outside of team interactions. And… humiliating as it is for him to admit, let alone acknowledge, Rodney _really_ wants to see more of Major Sheppard. 

There’s little reason for the man to come to Rodney, so Rodney’s forced to find reasons to go to him, and he’s about exhausted his plausible deniability. He already let the man punch him, shoot him and then push him off a balcony. And their schedules are too disparate to guarantee running into him in the mess regularly. And sure, Rodney could probably ask for more PT, but with his luck, Sheppard would delegate to Ford or Teyla and then he’s just being pummeled sans reward for his sacrifice. 

No, if he wanted to see more of Major John Sheppard, he was going to have to get creative. Which shouldn’t be all THAT difficult, he is a genius after all.

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

In the morning department meeting, Radek says something about overloaded capacitors tripping breakers in Area 2, Corridor 5.

“Lieven, if you could--”

“I got it,” Rodney interrupted. Radek gave him a sharp look; while it was hardly unusual for Rodney to interrupt the morning report, it was rarely to volunteer his time. And certainly not for something so negligible. 

“Doctor Lieven can easily--”

“No, he can’t,” Rodney said matter-of-factly. “The last time he tried to cross over to the generators, he couldn’t be bothered to properly ground himself. Unless you’re just that eager to see Beckett again, hmm?” Rodney looked beyond Zelenka to Bram Lieven, his eyebrow spiking high. 

Lieven puckered his mouth and looked sidelong towards the floor. It wasn’t like McKay was wrong, he’d just _slightly_ misjudged the situation is all. And sure, had gone into V-fib, but it’d all worked out.

Rodney took Lieven’s failure to make eye contact as acknowledgement. “Okay? Okay. Besides, Area 2 draws directly from Area 1, and we hardly need a short that close to the Stargate.” 

Radek tilted his head, surprised but willing to go with it. “Uhm, then yes, okay? Doctor McKay, please look into relay 7 through 18, in Corridor 5 of Area 2.” He tapped the change out on his tablet.

“Okay,” repeated Rodney, who then promptly tuned out the rest of the morning meeting, which was far more his usual MO.

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

“Hey, McKay.” Sheppard says, leaving Elizabeth’s office. “What’s going on here?”

Rodney’s pried the entire panel off the colonnade, exposing its crystals and delicate connection points. He hasn’t exactly been working slow, but definitely slower than his usual pace for something as straightforward as this. But Sheppard was taking roughly one hundred years to wrap it up with Weir, so even though Rodney’s basically done, he’s been rechecking each coupling one more time. Just to be sure.

“Hmm? Oh, Major. Hello. Yeah, just making sure we don’t all blow up.” Rodney says it casually and off the cuff, like it’s a joke, so Sheppard tries to take it as one. But Sheppard can never quite tell with McKay. Catastrophizing seems to be one of the man’s hobbies, but sometimes it turn out to be rooted in a certain amount of truth.

“Blow up? Uh, is that something we should be worrying about right now?” Sheppard smiled lopsidedly, but looked back towards Weir’s closed door, undoubtedly thinking of heroic escape plans and ironically life-endangering solutions as just a matter of due course.

“What? Oh, no, no! Just… just a figure of speech. Uhm, yes.” Rodney flashes an over enthused, vaguely panic-laced smile at the Major before diving back into the panel. _"Oh my God,"_ he thought. This was not going at all like how he’d envisioned. He was supposed to be impressing Sheppard with how brilliant and capable he is, how nice his ass looks when he’s bent over equipment. Instead, he just sounds like a driveling idiot. “There was just some power spikes. Connectors not aligned properly. This probably hasn’t been touched since the first month in the city, so. You know: updating.” He tries another smile, one full of bold confidence and charisma. He looks like an over eager mad scientist. 

“Right, well,” Sheppard drawled, still giving Rodney a narrowed, hinky eye. “Keep me posted if it’s anything to worry about.”

“Will do!” Rodney waved a connector relay in the Major’s direction. 

Sheppard considers buffing Rodney on the shoulder, but then decides against it. He’s still not entirely sure how serious he was about that blowing up thing.

“Catch you around then.”

When Sheppard’s sauntered off - because Major Sheppard saunters - and Rodney’s has had his fill of Sheppard’s backend view, he’s left to sigh heavily and mutter darkly. “Real smooth, _Meredith_.”

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

“We’re getting some sort of feedback loop,” Radek said, pushing his glasses up as he gave the large screen a hard look. “Like it is seeing double?”

Rodney’s also frowning, because this looks familiar. He has to just puzzle out the where and why of it. 

They stared at it a moment longer when suddenly Rodney clicked his fingers, the pieces falling into place. “It’s an echo, yes. We’re getting two sets of data, but it’s registering them from the same DB array. Here, see? Then here again?” He gestured easily between the garbled returns. “It’s trying to process them simultaneously. It’s probably our stuff in conflict with Atlantis’ internal protocols.” His hand gestured wide, mouth slanted down. He knows why this output looks familiar, now. “This is from Carter’s base code. Legacy. Typical,” he finished on a snort. He’s had to clean her slapdash crap ongoing a decade now.

“Well, it’s coming out of the short range sensors.”

“It’s in the machine code, I’ll handle it.”

“It’s Kavanaugh’s problem, he should--”

“That pompous, idiot man-child?” Rodney pulls a painful face, but so does Radek; it’s always bemusing when McKay gets on about someone else's ego. Rodney continued, “I’m _definitely_ handling it, then. No, if we wait for him, he’ll file a memo in triplicate about how I was mean to him on all the days that ended in Y before he even opens a prompt.”

Radek shrugged, “I’ll do it.” 

“No! Uhm. No, I said I got it and I got it. I don’t want room service from the Wraith because you couldn’t find the fnord to close.”

“Fine!” Radek barked, throwing his hands up. “Do grunt work yourself, see if I care. Do not complain to me then about how hard you have it around here.” He stabbed a finger into Rodney’s chest. “You bring this on yourself. Hmm? Yes.” 

“I’m sorry if I take the security of the city personally! I happen to really enjoy being not dead!” Rodney snarled back, slapping the finger away.

“Whatever.” Radek snatched up his laptop, undocking it from the main lab display. “You are going to do what you want to do anyway, why do I even bother.” Then he descended into Czech, so Rodney shouted “Communist!” after him before he was completely out the door.

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

Rodney is parked up in Command for three solid days, the problem turning out to be something a little more sophisticated than just an open code bracket. And it has to be done in situ because ‘Area 1’, aka Command, is on its own internal network for security/safety reasons and he has to actually concentrate on solving the problem before the entire subsystem fails out and starts a null cascade that could take out the Stargate.

Grodin gives him a skeptical look when he explains that part. Rodney tells him to just get out of his seat because Rodney needs that station, and go count Elizabeth’s paperclips again or whatever it is he does with his days.

He dedicates quite a bit of time to cursing Sam Carter for being both phenomenally sexy and astonishingly incompetent, because how is shit like this _still_ turning up ten-plus years on? Has _no one_ been listening to him this entire time? It also means they have to take the short range sensor array offline those three days, which makes everyone just a little tense. Extra guards are posted throughout the city, like THAT’S going to help anything Rodney complains, and mostly he just yells at them for always being exactly where he needs to be.

McKay keeps Zelenka and Simpson in a close orbit too, having them go over each finished section before he checks out another. It’s long and tedious work and he’s exhausted by zeros and ones far too early into the project. Command is overcrowded, and everyone wants them to hurry up and be finished yesterday, which suits Rodney just fine. 

Still, he makes time enough to watch Major Sheppard come and go, being easy on the eyes and a welcomed respite from binary. Sheppard seems to always be on the move, like he’s allergic to holding still. Rodney knows the man has an office, but you’d never guess where with the way Sheppard darts around the city. He makes frequent use of C&C’s central location as a shortcut between jaunts, which is a fact Rodney caught onto a long time ago and is currently exploiting.

Rodney goes so far as to mirror Sheppard’s outbound radio signals to his own earpiece to break up the monotony of the day, just to hear that gruff and gravelly voice issue orders and request follow-ups. Rodney should be ashamed with how far he’s taking this… this… crush? This humiliating infatuation. This disgraceful obsession. But he’s like an insane person, too caught up in the madness to really stop and think _"Should I?"_ rather than the _"Okay, but hear me out..."_ that he’s at right now.

The machine code gets sorted out, Atlantis’ protocols given priority over their self imposed bridging attempts, and the city is happier for it. He also documents the entire process to be sent at some future date to the SGC, ATTN Lt. Colonel Carter, Samantha, about how she’s still a certifiable lunatic, a guerrilla terrorist against the laws of physics, if she could _please_ stop trying to run alien technology with code built in Dreamweaver that would be great and why she has the authority she does is beyond Rodney McKay’s ability to comprehend. But his invitation to dinner is still open if she’d like him to go over the finer points of just how wrong she is.

“Good job, Rodney,” Elizabeth says with an appreciative smile. Rodney gives her a thumbs up, biting down into another power bar.

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

Things are MUCH easier when they’re on a mission together. Rodney has no problem ignoring Major Sheppard’s personal space, cosseting right up to the man and making a loud, acerbic nuisance of himself in a truly, truly misguided attempt at flirting.

Sheppard is never more hot then when he’s soldiering and when they’re not running for their lives, Rodney takes an immense pleasure in watching. The precision-trained confidence he has with weapons, the effortless way he interfaces with the Jumper, the casual charm he oozes all over the natives. It’s what John Sheppard was born to do, built to do. Nothing about any of that should be erotic, and yet it all delights and distracts Rodney endlessly. And all bets are off if Sheppard is wearing his aviator sunglasses.

The four of them are walking back to the gate when Ford asks McKay if he could maybe look at the PA system in the Marine’s common area? He complains it’s too tinny. 

“Oh, yes,” Rodney snorted dismissively, his elbow catching softly against Sheppard’s arm. “That’s me, President of Atlantis’ AV club. In absolutely no way would rewiring a squawk box not be a criminal misuse of my time or astounding intellect. I’ll get right on that for you, Lieutenant.”

Sheppard hitched his shoulder, knocking Rodney’s elbow back out. “I don’t know, _I_ can’t seem to go ten feet without tripping over you. Seemed reasonable to me.” Which is the first clue Rodney catches that maybe Sheppard is on to him.

Time to change tactics. He also fixes the PA.

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

It’s almost two in the morning when Zelenka pings Rodney’s door. Not that he’s asleep, but it’s the principle of the thing. He opens the door in his t-shirt and boxers, because there’s a very slim chance it might actually be something important? And pants can wait if doom is imminent.

“Was very clever, possibly ingenious.” Radek thrust his tablet into Rodney’s face. “Except that, you apparently didn’t think to modify the secondary backup log; I found it when working on stabilizing shield wavelength simulations.”

Rodney is truly confused for a moment, taking Radek’s tablet in both hands before the man broke his nose with it. His eyes took in the screen, growing exponentially wider in horror. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.” He staggered back into a half-spin.

“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Radek said, letting Rodney’s door shut behind him as he stepped through. “Why are you stalking Major Sheppard?”

“I- I’m not stalking anyone!”

“Well, now you are just bad liar on top of being bad stalker.” Radek pushed his glasses up before folding his arms.

Rodney looked down into the city-wide lifesign’s monitoring software, and yep, can easily see where he’s made the geofences and call outs and how they all hit against Major John Sheppard’s particular signature, to then feed directly to Rodney’s password protected and two-step authentication needed IDC. Three weeks of real time data collected, all there for anyone to see. In the main log, there’s a sudo subscript that scrubs this process out and cleans up after itself, making it all disappear like it never happened. But he forgot the secondary systems apparently and really, he’s just as much a fucking idiot as he’s ever accused anyone else of ever being. This is Goddamn amateur hour!

He narrowed his eyes. “Who else has seen this?” 

“Only I am aware of your shame, Rodney. For now.”

“Okay.” So this can be salvaged. Wetting his lips, Rodney takes a chance on a rumor and if this isn’t living life by the seat of your pants -- boxer shorts -- nothing is. “I can set you up with Elizabeth’s.”

Radek remains inscrutable just long enough that Rodney can feel the sweat breakout on his upper lip.

Then Zelenka gestures for his tablet back. “Okay. But we do better job at hiding it this time.”

.:O:. .:O:. .:O:.

“Mmm, Major Sheppard.” Rodney stood just outside the doorway of the firing range, one arm folded behind him, the other poised for conversation, his shoulders pulled back and chin lifted. It was a rather erudite stance, he thought, silhouetting all his best angles.

“Rodney,” Sheppard said as he joined him. His eyes narrowed a fraction, because McKay was already standing weird, which was usually a precursor to him acting weird, and really, things had a history of going off the rails at that point.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you to meet me here.” Rodney’s hand curved the air between them, his half-smile a little stuffy.

Sheppard narrowed his eyes further. “Because you wanted to try the P90. Your email said as much.”

“It-- what? Oh, right. Yes, yes.” He swung his other hand behind him, taking the second into the first in a white-knuckled death grip.

“McKay…?”

“I just thought, you know. Since we’re encountering so many more Wraith, and I’ve shown myself to be an exemplar member of your team, that I could… you know.” He bounced a bit on his feet, something like wistful hope and impending rejection mixing evenly across his face.

“Exemplar member, huh?”

“I-- yes? I’ve saved your life at least half a dozen times, I stood up to Bates when he was after Teyla, a clear demonstration of loyalty - I mean, ignoring for a moment how obviously ridiculous his entire proposal was, and I even gave those kids their ZedPM back. That sounds pretty outstanding to me.”

Sheppard just folded his arms and struck up a leisurely slant against the door frame. He arched an eyebrow expectantly.

Rodney isn’t exactly sure what’s going on, but something is definitely going on. The air seems suddenly charged between them. He puffed out his chest and set his shoulders straight; a short-lived boyfriend in grad school had once told him his broad shoulders looked like they could take on the world and were one of his best features. Before he sabotaged one of Rodney’s experiments during their rather spectacular campus wide break-up, of course.

“I… I just thought that. Maybe. For more back up. I could, or rather, you could, teach me that is,” Rodney stuttered out. “Lessons. You know. In shooting stuff.“

“You really _are_ terrible at this, aren’t you.” Sheppard’s head tilted to the side, regarding Rodney with a frank openness.

Rodney looked passingly offended, launching immediately into a defense. “I would hardly say terrible; a single-action weapon leaves a very narrow window of opportunity, and I think I've done remarkably well in the limited time we've had to--”

“At flirting.” Sheppard’s smile is like a lazy sunset, warm and holding out promises. “You're terrible at flirting.”

“W- what? Please!” Rodney snorted, forced and embarrassed. His head rocked back, expression a mockery of deniability. “I- I am HARDLY flirting here, Major, I’m merely trying to, to, to--” His hands came out to ineffectually gesture between them.

“Zelanka told me.”

Rodney’s hands froze. “What… _exactly_ did Zelenka tell you?”

“To be fair,” Sheppard drew the words long, pulling one hand out to scratch at his jawline casually. “He was only answering my question, so it's not like he ran up to me out of the blue one afternoon. And it did take me three days to actually ask, had to work myself up to it, so. He was probably just being polite. Or wanted me out of his hair -- either or.”

“Okay,” Rodney said very carefully, hyper-articulating. His hands curled into claws. “What did you _ask_ Doctor Zelenka that he felt compelled to answer?”

“Though I can’t say as he answered in so many words? Or any words? He actually just started laughing once I finally managed to get it all out. But it was more that ‘boy, you don’t know the half of it’ kind of sound rather than a ‘you are so off base’, you know? So I took it as a good sign.”

“So help me--” Rodney clenched his jaw and made a fist. Like some caricature of a bully, he brandished it under Sheppard’s nose.

Licking his lips, Sheppard took in a breath to brace himself and oh God. What is happening?! Sheppard laid one hand over Rodney's fist, pushing it down gently. Just what the fuck did Zelenka not-say-but-said-by-laughing-to-him?! 

“I asked him if you’d be receptive. To me. Maybe asking you out to dinner.” Sheppard’s -- John’s voice is soft, and even if his mouth is teasing, there’s an earnestness to his hazel eyes. “And by dinner, I mean MREs over at my place, but I have that half-balcony, so we could pretend it was a cafe or something. Though it’s nowhere near a transporter so it’ll be a bit of a hike, but that’s your fault, so you know that part already.”

Wait, wait, wait. Rodney’s mouth fell open, trying to parse it all. “You… you want to ask _me_ out? On- on a date?” He pointed at himself, just to double check John knows who he’s talking to. Talking about.

“Yes, Rodney. I figure doing it this way is easier. That, or pretending my toilet was clogged just so the Director of Research and Development could show up at my door with a space-plunger, because he just _happened_ to be in the area with one of those, but I thought that just seemed a little too far fetched.” And, again, despite the teasing, there’s a genuine sincerity to John that Rodney can’t escape. Rodney can also see John’s own fear of rejection just touching the edges of his usual easy confidence, making Rodney second guess life, the universe and everything he ever thought he understood about either. 

“I don’t-- Because I thought-- You see, rarely does this happen to me. Well, I mean--”

“Rodney.”

“Oh, uh. Yes?”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“To what?”

John resists the tremendous urge to clip McKay behind the head. Instead, he pushed himself to stand from his lean in the doorframe and crowds Rodney gently. “To dinner,” he says low. Bracing a hand against the wall, over Rodney’s shoulder, he frames in the other man. “With me.”

“I-- yes? That’d be. Yes.”

“Great,” John said in that same low rumble that draws goosebumps up Rodney’s arms. They held each other’s gaze for a moment longer, before John shook his head lightly. “God, your eyes are amazing. I could get lost-- anyway.” John chuckled self-consciously, embarrassed to be caught out so vulnerable. Rodney is thoroughly flushed pink.

“Anyway,” John repeated, roughly clearing his throat. Standing back up straight, he cocked his head and clapped Rodney on the shoulder. It was a familiar enough gesture, but John lets his thumb caress the tender space just to the side, where Rodney’s throat met the collar of his shirt, and that’s entirely new. “See you at 1900?” Rodney swallowed before giving the most infinitesimal of nods, and John’s smile hints at a smirk before he heads back down the hallway.

“Oh my God,” Rodney whispered, still rooted into place. Then he broke into a maniacal grin, because he had a bonafide DATE with Major John Sheppard. John had even been the one to make the first move, so no take backs! 

He snap-popped his fingers into a fist before practically skipping off down to the science labs where he was going to absolutely murder Radek. 

After thanking him.

**Author's Note:**

> A thank you to [escriveine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/escriveine/pseuds/escriveine), because they made the comment that the reason we don't see more stories of Rodney stalking John, versus the more standard trope of John coming down to bug Rodney in his labs, etc, is because Rodney has zero concept of busy work.
> 
> Which made me wonder, what *would* Rodney do, then to stalk a John Sheppard but in as productive a fashion as he could contrive?
> 
> So thank you for that. :)


End file.
